21 Dec 2011

Précis

How do you summarise 12 months where not much happened? For me at least, it was pretty much by the book. Painting by numbers without straying outside the lines. I have no idea about anything at the moment... though I can say with some certainty that the world probably won’t end next year (funny how all those who unquestioningly follow Pope Gregory every day of their lives suddenly ‘believe’ in the prophetic Mayan calendar isn’t it).

That aside, there are no statements to make. No finalities or punchlines, no gong to signal time’s up. I just want to be home. Locked doors, Xmas TV, fancy booze and family. Seriously – that’s all I need. 

And some mini sausages wrapped in bacon. 

Merry Xmas.


15 Dec 2011

Mass wasting. 

The tumult began in such a
Far
Distant
Past
We could not begin to fathom the genesis of the fall

But at least we could recognise
The fall
At the very least
The gross thundering awoke our ears
To the day’s real light

To the day’s white bleach
A bird-scaring shriek of white
A high pitched velocity of this thing
Intangibility become destructive force

Laughing
All
The
Way.

12 Dec 2011

Automatic Writing

New.

We lay under a hall of mirrors.
A hundred walls across us,
For hours, days, weeks
We lay there
Conscious,
Sane,
Yet unwilling to rise.

The weight of crashing sounds inside
Us -
Gravity playing no part
Other than a muted distraction,
A throat tickle.

Sickening guitars strum while
Our hearts - stone become iron
Feel nothing of it.
Steel,
Concrete,
Stone, pebbles and black tar slabs
Crush down at a glacial pace.

And each word,
Every black letter, one after the next,
Add to the ending...
Unhelpful and laughing and deceitful and,

We lay under there
A hundred years across us.
We lay there
Conscious,
Barely relevant,
Unwilling to rise.

Slow voices turn stomachs while
Our hearts – iron become ore
Feel nothing of it.
Hate,
Love, rain, snow and ash
All drifting down, as a swan feather in the
Summer breeze.

And each line,
Sentence and crying shame of the ink
Splattered page,
Grasps at throats
Claws at skin, and still
Fails to hold
On.




Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 67, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3177


 
 
from Atheism.com:

Much of what people associate with Christmas pre-dates Christianity. Traditional Christianity celebrates the death of holy people, not their birth. In 274 CE, pagan emperor Aurelian proclaimed December 25th ‘Natalis Solis Invicti’ the festival of the birth of the invincible sun. Saturnalia already occurred around this time along with many other celebrations. Christians took over this and other Roman festivals.

Evergreen trees and holly were important because they held their green colors despite the harshest winters. The Santa Claus character is usually traced to Saint Nicholas, a patron saint of children on whose day - December 6th - gifts were given to kids. Beyond the idea that that people are supposed celebrate the birth of Jesus on this day, this is all that Christianity has directly contributed.

modern notions of Santa Claus can also be traced to the writings of Washington Irving — writings often meant as satire, yet which also often ended up being read as factual. His stories about New Amsterdam being dominated by a cult which celebrated the figure of Saint Nick were popular and he often returned to the figure of Saint Nicholas, even writing about “old fashioned” Christmas celebrations which he simply made up.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has not been his only influence. He seemed obsessive about the holiday, and more than once he depicted lavish Christmas feasts rife with “old fashioned” traditions which were little more than literary creations. Nevertheless, people followed right along, enchanted with the atmosphere he created and wishing to capture it for themselves.

Clement Moore is credited with writing the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas which almost singlehandedly created the modern American conception of Santa Claus, what he looks like, and what he does (without ever using the name Santa Claus). At this point Santa Claus is fully secularized. There is no reference to sainthood, Christianity, or Jesus. Instead, Santa has a pagan image — he is, after all, described as an elf. Nast also establishes Christmas ideas like hanging stockings by the fireplace.

Illustrator Thomas Nast is the one who gave America the physical pictures of Santa Claus, thus providing a common, shared vision of the primary symbol of an increasingly secular holiday. Nast also added numerous key details about his life which hadn’t been used by others before: Nast’s pictures showed Santa reading children’s letters, watching their behavior, writing the naughty and nice lists, and living at the North Pole.

It was just after World War II that people complained about over-commercialization of Christmas and started to try to “put Christ back into Christmas.” But why at this point in history? Blame it on the war: during the conflict, people had to shop early in order to get Christmas gifts to the troops overseas in time. Merchants, of course, benefited from the early shopping and made a point of reminding people to shop early — even after the war ended.

Thus the lengthy holiday shopping season was born and it’s been getting longer ever since. Over time people have learned to try to shop even earlier in order to beat the maddening holiday rush — and retailers, being the good public servants that they are, have sought to accommodate them with earlier and earlier holiday sales. By and large, the spirit of giving has become predicated upon a spirit of buying.

Such is our modern Christmas: a large number of ancient pagan practices, a few pieces of Christian traditions, and a large number of modern creations which are almost entirely secular in nature, no matter where they got their inspiration from. I see little room and little need for any “Christ” in all of this - but more importantly, I see little place where a “Christ” could be put back into the mix.
So when you find someone talking about putting Christ back into Christmas, you can ask them what part Christ really played in Christmas to begin with. Although you may not be interested in celebrating holidays with any religious trappings whatsoever, Christianity’s hold on Christmas, from a religious perspective, is rather tenuous. If you’re an atheist who would like to enjoy the holiday, you should be able to do so without giving Christianity a second thought.

n.b: (The post title is the Discordian/Erisian date of Xmas 2011)

And while we’re on ‘traditions’...

 

9 Nov 2011

Viewage

Watched this last night.

Any film that contains the line 'I'm bi-furious' wins. It's that simple.

8 Nov 2011

Jo Frazier 1944 – 2011





Not much to say except watch the documentary above if you can. RIP.
Articles HERE and HERE.

4 Nov 2011

Her in

Life in a Day

Watched this last night. Good stuff.

Quote of the weekend

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; garlands from window to window; golden chains from star to star, and I dance. Rimbaud

3 Nov 2011

Quote of the week

'In a world gone mad, only a lunatic is truly insane.'

2 Nov 2011

Change


I do not have any
I do not want any
I have no time for it
The space around me constricts me far too tightly
For it

The space inside me restricts any further
- Ah
There is no room left to move

Change
How overrated
Played under the table like
A game of 21 with yourself
Always the winner
Always the rookie
A fallacy created by mothers and managers and
Those who know no better

Change
For eternity until you turn
Right
Back
And like the fish
You will find yourself leaping
Into the fuzzy brown jaws of death

One day no doubt
A wave will overtake me
Washing me ashore
Salty and new
Waking to a new day
Maturity and wisdom
Patience and calm
Peace

One day
No doubt
Though the Sun may catch the Earth before that
Happens.

HMM. Again? Again and again...

31 Oct 2011

Bruuah-ha-haaaa!

The Halloween post from the best skate blog on the interweb (when does 're-posting' cross over into straight up theivery?) included these 2 images - I couldn't choose which to post so did them both. I had no idea at the time that everyone else loved that Corey O'Brien graphic as much as I did - one of my all time fave boards to this day. And a quick shout out to the OG Skate City in Bromley where we'd buy our 'bootleg' Slimeballs.


28 Oct 2011

Peej at the Albert

Off to the Albert Hall to see this lady on Sunday. I know this is an old photo
but I used it because a. I like it, and b. Val took it. And Val's nice.

Post-show update...
PJH/RAH


Dark, feathered, loud, soft, choral, primal, weightless, heavy, old, new. At points it felt like a sun collapsing in on itself, the density taking everything in the room toward it. Polly Harvey.


(we were WAY closer than this but I-phones are shite in low light) rhyming.

26 Oct 2011

the 'Zone

A marathon of these on Blu Ray is the best night time remedy for boredom filled days at work.


A Blu bonus is the original sponsor adverts they drop inbetween the episodes:

20 Oct 2011

Quote of the day

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman

19 Oct 2011


You ever tried meditation? I mean really? It’s crazy hard.

Sometimes when you’re stressed and panicking about everyday life problems, you get tired, run down and so – you go to bed. Only to find when you get there that your eyes are fixed open, your brain running at 100 miles an hour. After a time you tend to focus your thoughts down onto something familiar or comfortable and this begins to relax you somewhat. This can be a subconscious move - your brain retreating a little to stop it overheating. I always end up on skateboarding. The physical act of it is probably the main reason, constant flow, carving, the smoothness of surfaces and good weather required to be able to skate are all positive images, and thinking of things I want to do or places I would like to be is a great distraction. The vision of bright yellow sunshine in a transworld blue sky while in a pitch dark room at 1am seems to be enough to metaprogramme the grey tissue and ensure a slow drift into the world of dreams.

So thinking on this, I decided to write a piece called ‘Concrete Meditation’ due to the images of skateparks and grey transitions that would frequent these thoughts. And as I sometimes do before using a title, I Googled it to check if it already existed in some other form, as sometimes I tend to avoid an overused or already ‘taken’ term. This is what I found:

Meditation is of two main kinds, viz., Saguna (concrete) meditation and Nirguna (abstract) meditation. In concrete meditation the Yogic student concentrates on the form of the Lord Krishna, Rama, Siva, Hari, Gayatri or Sri Devi. In abstract meditation he concentrates the whole energy of the mind on one idea of God or Atman and avoids comparisons of memories and all other ideas. The one idea fills the whole mind.

Now I’m not saying I ride around grinding curbs on ‘God’ but it’s the practice of focusing on form vs idea that I find fits what I meant really well. So seeing as it does already exist, I won’t be writing the piece I was planning to because after discovering that info, I guess I don’t need to anymore. Who knew, I’d been meditating all along.

17 Oct 2011


Tying in (vaguely) with the Richter post - here's a Sonic Youth track
in respect of Kim and Thurston's marriage being no more.
(ha! like they're my friends or something... I never even met those guys!)

16 Oct 2011

art2



portrait images never seem to work to well on the blog, but anyway... these are from our visit to the Gerhard Richter show which was ridiculous on so many levels that I had to leave before being made to feel totally unremarkable. Pics are the Tacita Dean turbine hall projection which is also really good - despite all the blond haired Tarquins and Tabernacles slapping the screen going 'waa waa waa' while there fucknuts parents stood drinking their Starbucks.

14 Oct 2011

art

Isaac was very pleased with the first canvas for his bedroom.
Fresh from the Fos SE14 clearout sale.

13 Oct 2011

The inward facing life and times of a minstrel from beyond.

I am not here to help, merely to resent. The least pliable materials imaginable combined within that initial bang to form this body. As long a time as it all took to combine, suppressed under the weight of dying stars. Gases no longer - but eyes, toenails and vicious tongue...

I am not here to support or advise, complement or even tolerate, simply to ignore with extreme prejudice. To maintain excommunication and build upon an ever increasing outward defence. Higher sharper, blacker, whiter...

I am not here for these things, because I am not from here. I never was. This has been confirmed to me time and again and continues to be so. The space between the language, the vacuum where thoughts are no longer born, a blanket of blank looks and fallen gazes. As I sing out loud, these earth songs - but only to myself...

And the talking - but the talking - goes on like the dripping of a broken tap while everyone else is trying to sleep, small and echoing. Laser light. All wavelengths in unison, continuous, and irrelevant for being so. The concept of infinity being lost on the majority...

Red, straight, defended, suppressed. Resentment, alien, jealousy, and far too lazy for any useful rage. Sloth within blood flow causes and affects a single eye needle. Pronoun and preposition error, syntax disintegration, contact equalling immolation. All false rhymes to distract from the simple fact that I simply do not belong.





3 Oct 2011

The flat Mr Fox


You could hear the flesh slap against the front
Wheels
As the car ran him over,
It wasn’t the death strike -
That must’ve happened hours before - but
Damn,
He’d been got good
As they say.
There were 4 or 5 solid pieces of torso,
Orange fur covered steaks.

Like someone had taken the cleaver to him
And lay him out like that to tenderise the meat.
It was as grotesque a thing as I’d seen all year,
Up close anyway,
But still I didn’t care.
It was probably him shitting in my garden,
His babies mewing and screeching into the small
Hours.

I didn’t care that he was dead,
Or how it happened.
Or that his remains were being desecrated by
Each passing bus or
Truck or
Motorcycle.

I saw a pigeon a little later on that morning,
Flattened on the tarmac and guts out,
Dirty grey feathers blowing across the streets of Soho,

It was nowhere
Near
As impressive.




27 Sept 2011

26 Sept 2011

Nothing/No one – Act II.


I have forgotten again
The weeks now past
My weakness now passed
Memory amended
Personality disorder rebranded

I had the bullets in my head
Ready to fire
One for each line
Perhaps they shot away
While I slept

Or rolled to the gutter
While I strode the paving slabs
Towards work
They are now gone away
Regardless of how much I need them

I carry an empty gun
Without even a flower to block the barrel
My internal dialogue is a song about a
Song
I have forgotten

And the external monologue rings
In my ears but then
Everything rings in my ears nowadays
The lines get longer and state less
It is all steam escaping
From a boiling saucepan

A spider sways above me and curses my name for disturbing his
Sleep.

22 Sept 2011

Goodbye REM

“A wise man once said – ‘the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.’ We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we're going to walk away from it … I hope our fans realize this wasn't an easy decision; but all things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way.”



This band were quite literally the soundtrack to a really important part of my life. Fronted by one of the people who I respect most as a writer and artist, and who still inspires me to keep writing.

20 Sept 2011

Release

Both of these are out from today:


Just as a bit of trivia - the Holy Terror was originally going to be Batman.

19 Sept 2011

combo

YouTube/Kittens - always a winner. Throw some lightsabers in there and you're golden... Cheers to my bro for sending me this:


Walken

So your wife goes to drink cocktails at Chateau Marmont in L.A and ends up in a conversation with this guy about how good his cosmopolitans are:

True story.

13 Sept 2011

the view from (not) here

Lu's view of Greenland. I'm watching Gilmore Girls - doesn't really compare...

8 Sept 2011

Quote of the day

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. Bertrand Russell

31 Aug 2011

Quote of the day

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.  Rilke

26 Aug 2011

Dead End

I forgot about this. it's been on my hard drive for years but as my Mac is literally dying I haven't watched it in forever. A pre-Nolan Batman (vs predator / vs Alien). Sick:

25 Aug 2011

Jaws

Between this clip and THIS clip... I don't know what's even going on anymore. Seriously.

24 Aug 2011

Stop.


If they are in your way
Slow
Turn
Stop

If they’re blocking your flow
Change
Soften
Yield

If they will not submit
Dance
Adapt
Improvise

Or
Just walk in the goddamn road.